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Weaknesses * You demons eat lots of supplies: they¿re all size 3, and most of them have gluttony (eg, all Rakshasa units have gluttony -4!), so you¿ll either need to take growth scales, or forge many Endless Bags of Wine (Cons 4, N) / Enormous Cauldron of Broth (Cons 2, N3) with your Yoginis (DN2B), or set up NNE-only (Need Not Eat) armies (most of these gluttonous demons also happen to need not eat, which means they won¿t starve if supplies are missing, but other troops will starve because the demons will eat all available food!); * All your best troops are demons, so watch out enemy priests; you might consider going for an Astral bless to bestow them a bonus to their MR; * Poor Province Defence (Markatas and Markata archers); * No Fire, Water, Earth or Astral national mages. Recruitable troops quick walkthrough * Markatas and Markata archers: small potatoes (5 gold, 1 res, HP 5, Prot 0, morale 7); they form the core of your PD (province defence or maybe province defenceless?); they are not powerful, they are not courageous, they die like lemmings¿ but they can nevertheless (theoretically) swarm big enemies thanks to their small size, and are definitely good arrow fodder for the price; * Atavi infantry and Atavi archers: they are cheap stealthy units (9 gold); and are a better bargain than the more expensive Bandars in time of dire need; * Bandar warriors (20 gold, 13 res) and Bandar archers (20 gold, 7 res): just as Man¿s longbowmen, the Bandar archers are invaluable in taking enemy archers; * Kala-Mukha warriors, Asaras, Anusaras, and Palankashas: these four are Lanka¿s elite troops; they¿re all sacred, have 24-30 HP, and Att 12+; the latter three are demons and are capital-only; in the game I¿m currently running, I have not used the less expensive Asaras and Anusaras because I felt they had a too low Protection (3 and 4 respectively) for the price (35 gold), and I had no bless effect to help it; the Kala-Mukha warriors (50 gold, 24 HP, Prot 13, Att 13, Def 12) and the Palankashas (45 gold, 30 HP, Prot 14, Att 13, Def 12) are powerhouses, and a bunch of them with the proper blessing can take most armies; Palankashas are a better bargain for the price than Kala-Mukha warriors, but they are capital-only. Recruitable commanders quick walkthrough * Markata scout just a basic scout; * Atavi Chieftain, Bandar Commander and Bandaraja are the usual troop leaders (40, 80 and 120 regular troops respectively); note the Atavi Chieftain is stealthy and can lead stealthy Atavi infantry and archers into enemy provinces; * Raktapata (90 gold, sacred, BH) is your basic blood hunter; he¿s a big boy and can forge his own SDR; * Kala-Mukha (160 gold, sacred, B?HH, ?=100%(ADNB)) can get you B2 mages which you can use to start blood hunting before you have access to SDR, or to cast Bowl of Blood when you have reached Blood-2; the other ones (ABH2, DBH2 and NBH2), I used mainly for H2 (Sermon of Courage), preaching, and occasional item forging; * Yoginis (110 gold, DN2B): you will need a few of them to develop your Nature and Death magic, forge item, search for sites, etc * Rakshasis (350 gold, sacred, ADNBHH??*, ?=100%, *=10%(ADNB)) and Raksharajas (270 gold, sacred, AADBBHH$*, $=100%(ADB), *=10%(ADNB)) are your demon army leaders; most of them can cast A3+ and/or B3+ spells/rituals; with a little luck (or empowerment), you can get A4 or B4 commanders and bootstrap the Air and Blood boosting items sequence; the Rakshasi is much more expensive than the Rakshasa because she has a hidden skill: she can change shape to a Manushya Rakshasi (bless you!), without loosing magic paths, and in that form, she can seduce enemy commanders [usage tip: as she cannot fly back with seduced commander like a Succubus, you must try and seduce an enemy commander in a province neighbouring one of your provinces, so she can walk back with him] National summons troops quick walkthrough * Gana (x20, Conj 2, 12D, needs D1): inexpensive ethereal undead troops with spectral weapons (don¿t hit if target rolls MR), nice for swarming the battlefield with fodder; * Rakshasas (x5, Blood 1, 10 slaves, needs B2 Sacred, demon, 28 HP, Prot 5, Att 14, Def 11) and Phragasas (x15, Blood 2, 50 slaves, needs B1N1 Sacred, demon, 35 HP, Prot 4, Att 13, Def 10) I have not used much because of their low Protection and no bless effect to help it; * Asrapas (x5, Blood 3, 11 slaves, needs B2 Sacred, demon, 19 HP, Prot 1, Att 12, Def 13) are berserk(+3) and wield Athames (magical partial life-draining weapons), but again, I have not used them much because of their very low Prot; * Rakshasa Warriors (x5, Blood 4, 25 slaves, needs B2 Sacred, demon, 30 HP, Prot 14, Att 13, Def 10) are the units you want to summon en masse in mid game to replace the capital-only Palankashas; * Sandhyabalas (x3, Blood 5, 30 slaves, needs B2D1 Sacred, demon, 30 HP, Prot 14, Att 14, Def 13) are even better and more expensive warriors who are stealthy and wield Moon Blades; * And finally, the Davanas (x3, Blood 8, 75 slaves, needs B5 Sacred, demon, 92 HP, Prot 12, Att 12, Def 11) are four-armed huge (size-6) demons who wield three unholy weapons (with the ¿Halt Sacred¿ effect); though I have not tried it yet, they look like a very nice target for the Gift of Reason ritual. National summons commanders quick walkthrough * The Dakinis (Blood 6, 50 slaves, needs BBA Sacred, demon, fly, blood vengeance(+0), A3D1B3H3) are more powerful than your capital-only Raksharajas and Rakshasis; they are powerful Blood mages, and can make good thugs or SC with a few Air buffs, Athame (partial life-draining weapon), innate blood vengeance, and a few buff items (like a ring of Regeneration forged by your Yoginis); plus they can Divine Bless (H3) your demons; definitely a multi-purpose commander; * The Samanishada (Blood 7, 35 slaves, needs B3D1) is an assassin; I love assassins; * And finally, the Mandaha (Blood 8, 133 slaves, needs B5D2) is Lanka¿s best commander: this huge Rakshasa (size 6) is a mighty warrior (65 HP, Prot 15, Att 14, Def 10) wielding a Flesh Eater, as well as a very powerful magic user (A3D3B2) and priest (H3); moreover, he is constantly surrounding by a large Sleep Cloud, and, in combat, the battlefield is plunged into Darkness! So with this buddy, you get the perfect demon army leader: with H3, he can cast Divine Blessing on all your demons at the beginning of a battle, and with the permanent Darkness (which doesn¿t affect your demons), your demons get a huge advantage on your opponent; this summon is definitely the best for investment for Lanka.
Tips
* Go for Blood! This school will give you your most powerful troops that you can summon anywhere on the map (remember, your gorgeous Palankashas are capital-only, and have the holy unit recruit limit) and some beautiful and unique commanders; I believe your main milestones are Blood-4 (Summon Rakshasa Warriors) and Blood-8 (Summon Mandaha); * As far as research goes, I would advise you to first run to Cons-4 to get the SDR (Sanguine Dousing Rod), and then switch to Blood as you start up the Blood economy with your SDR-equipped Raktapatas (90 gold, sacred, BH); it¿s no use starting right away researching Blood as you won¿t have enough good blood-hunters (B2 or B+SDR) and not enough blood slaves flowing in; once you have reached Blood-4 and your research is running fine, you might consider spending a few points in other schools from time to time to unlock some spells: Air buffs and evocations for your mage commanders (Raksharajas and Rakshasis), site-searching spells for your DN2B Yoginis; but try and stick to Blood, it¿s really worth it! * Getting to Cons-4 first also gives you access to Skull Mentors (D2, RP+9) which you happen to have plenty of Death gems to forge with (+3/turn from initial sites + all death sites that you can find with your Yoginis); * You might consider going for a Drain scale, as your researchers will be using Skull Mentors, so RP-1 (Drain -1 or -2) instead of the usual RP+1 (Magic +1) won¿t have much impact on your research, and most of your magic (Blood) will be based on rituals, not battlefield spells, so the extra fatigue from the Drain scale won¿t affect you much (less than your enemies hopefully); * Have a couple Raksharajas cast monthly Bind Storm Demon; a dozen of them makes a deadly flying artillery (lightnings); * Almost all your troops are sacred, so a bless strategy definitely is a must; I have tried an Astral-9 bless (MR+3 and Twist Fate): MR+3 is nice to protect your demons from Banishment, and Twist Fate is really great for short and violent battles (eg, against cavalry); but since your demons have lots of HP, going for Nature and Regeneration might be a better idea, especially if you intend to use the low-Prot demons; or then maybe Air (for Air shield), but the same effect can be achieved (in late game, though) with Arrow Fend (Ench-6, A3) or with Darkness-casting Mandahas (Blood-8); I don¿t think Earth-9 (for Prot+4) is worth it (not enough for low-Prot demons, and not much a difference for high-Prot and high-HP demons); I think that Fire (increased Attack) and Blood (increased Strength) are not necessary as the demons already have great Strength and enough Attack (which increases a lot with experience, which they are going to accumulate a lot since they are very durable); Water surely would be a good bless, especially Water-9, for Quickness; if I was to start a new game with Lanka, I think I¿d try a dual Water-9/Nature-4 or Water-9/Nature-6 bless. 8.21.2.2 Comments -> Just a thing you seems to have missed about the demon troops : they don't have any helmet, meaning that they're vulnerable to low strenght attacks that hit the head , were only the natural protection apply for them. The only sacred troop that does have a helmet are the Kala-Mukha, and they're not capitol-only, and are not marked as demons (an advantage : they cannot be banished) They have only two minor flaws : they don't get the "need not eat" ability and are gluttonous, and they cost more in gold and ressource that the others units (but as theyr are more useful ...) The advantages of the capitol-only demons, are being cheaper, and a better mouvement value (Palankashas have 15 AP versus 8 for the Kala-Mukha, so they can be good flanking units) Because of the lack of helmet on the demons units, I find that they're less survivable than the Kala-Mukha. It would have been a good idea i think if in exchange for this weakness they had something else really useful (a bite secondary attack would have been perfect for the tiger-headed demons, even if it means increasing their cost) Another thing : i think that the "do not need to eat" ability doesn't work exactly as you seems to think when the unit is gluttonous. From what I understand, any normal unit need its size in supply to prevent starving, and "do not need to eat" reduce this number to 0. The gluttonous ability works like a negative supply bonus (in fact, it *is* a negative supply bonus, a unit with a supply bonus (for exemple your nature mages) that are gluttonous only show the supply bonus icon, with a lesser value that expected) What does it means ? If you have a size 3 demon with the "do not need to eat" ability and gluttonous -4, he will never starve and will reduce the supply available by 4 only, so he will only be the same as a size 4 unit (such as a jotun giant). At least, it's what *I* think is how it works. -> Note: The Dakinis are H2, not H3. -> And finally, the Mandaha (Blood 8, 133 slaves, needs B5D2) is Lanka’s best commander: This guy makes for a fun SC, but perhaps that's a bad idea against humans. 100% weakness to fire.... only sacred troop that does have a helmet are the Kala-Mukha, and they're not capitol-only, and are not marked as demons (an advantage : they cannot be banished) The helmet also gives them a better boost from E9 bless if you use it. E9 + nature bless may be good since they'll kill slower than other sacreds with only one weapon. -> Don't think of seduction as a way to capture units, but as a better assassination ability. With it, your Rhakshasis are de facto assassin mages that can, with the correct spells/items, kill most commanders. I once used one that to capture a indep province near my capitol while my main army was elsewhere (indeps str 9) : it took 3-4 turns to kill all the commanders, and one more to capture the province, it was a lone commander, and not an army. And of course sometimes you get lucky and get a free commander. Usually just a normal commander (always useful for carrying troops to the front), but sometimes you can be very lucky and get a mage with useful magic paths or a good ability. -> Yeah, I've tested out the Rhakshasis myself, and they just seem too expensive to risk in an assassin's role, at least in an MP game. Are there any ways to increase the chance of a seduction? Items that increase penetration perhaps? If not, sounds like they're only worth buying for a chance at D3 or N3 (at 350 a pop though, that's an expensive bet). Well, we'll see if anyone comes up with another idea for them. Until then, I'll toss out a few Lanka tips for others to try: 1. Find a crap province next to the capitol (swamp or something is good), and start re-animating ghouls. Even a lowly indie priest can do it! About 2/3 of your ghouls should be big monkey-ghouls (how cool is that!) who are about double the power of regular ghouls. Not bad for a province that might otherwise go to waste. The unit description (I forgot their name unfortunately) says the odds for killer ghoul-monkeys declines markedly the further away from the capitol, but I haven't tested out by how much. 2. 15 death gems and a little research can easily get you into the water! 3 gems and Ench 2 get you a Mound King commander, I think, and 12 gems and Conj 2 get you 20 Ganas. They are poor amphibians still, but their ethereal ability should keep them in the fight long enough to rout armies consisting only of your average Joe-merman or triton. If you want a little more insurance, you can fill out your force with some re-animated soulless or longdead (or use 12 more gems for another batch of ganas to be extra sure). On another note, in an SP game once, I GoRed some of those 4-armed Davanas, with very nice results, as they tended to get some random levels of air/death/priest magic to go with their giant size and multiple limbs... -> Note, cat charm increases chance of seduction on women, bear charm on men, I think. I dunno about GoRing blood summons, but the mandaha is hands down the best non-unique SC chassis in EA. -> Demons are immune to disease. I've put fever fetishes on them and they don't lose hp. -> mandahas flying is pretty okay because they make great SCs (so can be off on their own) also many of the demon armies that one can summon up with this nation (storm demons, etc) are flying. I like to give them a wraith crown, armor of invulnerability (or stone, or if i don't have earth I give them the chain mail of displacement) amulet of antimagic, pendant of luck, boots of quickness, charcoal shield and shadow brand. Cast soul vortex, mirror image, maybe mistform or holy avenger, and lay on in. -> Just an aside: Mandaha's are not even close to free. They have a gold cost of 600 which translates to 20 upkeep per turn when you account for sacredness. Doesn't Mandaha also autocast darkness at the beginning of combat? The description implies something like that so I added it to the DB under special abilities, but I could be wrong. 8.21.3 Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan -> Mictlans troops summons(and possibly commander summons, especially the one who generates free beast bats) are far superior to lankas imo, with jaguar fiends being flying, 3 attack, good stat sacreds with a reasonable cost. Mictlan is far better for a bless strategy due to its cheap and effective sacred troops and, while lanka is good(i personally like it) i dont think it can knock the blood crown off mictlans head. -> Hmmm, I'm coming at it from the other angle having played Mictlan extensively and just picking up Lanka. Just starting out with Lanka, but here are a couple things that I seem to be missing coming from Miclan. 1) Bloodhunters are 50% more expensive 2) Everybody complains, but I like dominion pushes through blood sacrifices with level 3 priests and easily forgable jade daggers. 3) No easy way to spam "rain of toads". Priest king + armor of twisted thorns = very scalable ability to shut down enemy fortresses. 4) Mictlan national summons ROCK. Haven't got the Lanka ones yet so can't really comment, but the Mictlan ones are hard to beat. 5) No recruitable blood-3 mage (without hoping for lucky randoms). This is important because you need blood-4 to forge brazen vessles, and one empowerment is much more palletable than two. Plus, once you've got a brazen vessel with Mictlan, you can give it to a priest king, who forges an armor of twisted thorns, who gives that to another priest king, who forges an armor of twisted thorns, now the original forger gets an armor of twisted thorns in addition to the brazen vessel and can forge brazen vessels, etc. etc., so it is relatively cheap to get as many blood-5 mages as you care to (priest of the sun + 2 path boosters), and there are several very good blood-5 spells which are very suitable to spam casting (ritual of the five gates and infernal disease come to mind). Plus, your blood-5 mages can rejuvinate themselves so the old age issue isn't that bad. 6) Flying sacreds. Eagle warriors have saved my bacon on numerous occasions. 7) No easy way to summon Ice Devils (priest of rain + water braclet + brazen vessel) 8) No easy way to send horrors (priest of moon + astral cap + brazen vessel) 9) Less reliance on random pics. With Mictlan, I can adjust my strategy to what my opponent is doing. With Lanka, I'm more stuck using whatever happen to have with my random magic paths. -> Response: I'm definitely not extensively experienced in Mictlan, but I like them as much as I like any nation in the game (most enjoyment thus far - Yomi, EA/LA Mictlan, MA/LA Ermor, LA Rl'yeh). 1. I tried to cover this above in the "bloodhunters of mictlan are cheaper but mictlan needs to spend blood in dominion maintenance" point. Not saying that mictlan spends 1/3 of its blood in dominion maintenance, but I've often spent 30+ slaves in sacrifice a round in 150 province games. 2. Lanka can easily forge knives, and if they want to sacrifice then level 2 priests with jade knives in temples that do spread dominion are pretty much the same as level 3 priests in non-functional temples. 3. See point 5. 4. Mictlan national summons do rock - I love the Tlahuelpuchi and Civeteto as assassins and leader/reanimators respective, and the Onaqui is great. So do Lanka's summons, however, albeit benefitting more from defensive than offensive blesses. And Lankan high end summons are remarkably good SCs, able to cast Mistform and Mirror Image, being sacred, and one possessing Blood Vengeance while the other automatically shrouds the battlefield in Darkness while possessing a fatiguing aura. I've taken out 100+ unit armies with a single Dakini with a snake ring, snake bladder stick, horned helm, and vine shield (funded by an early game mother oak, in turn funded by an early game push to skull mentors - an option that Mictlan generally lacks unless they get lucky with their national hero, since your pretender will likely be imprisoned for the best bless). 5. I made a similar point above re: Mictlan's magic being in general more predictable, but this particular example doesn't hold water. Armor of Thorns requires a little more luck, but it's definitely doable. All it takes is a bramble mace (forged by a Yogini, guaranteed nature 2) and either a lucky BBB Rakshasi or an empowered BB Rakshasi (not particularly rare, roughly 50% of all Rakshasi are at least BB), which is the same thing you do with Priest Kings. Then your assembly line is up and rolling, and the random picks which were annoying in fact now potentially give you anywhere from N4 to B4 with Armor of Thorns alone, without empowering or further items. 6-8. Lanka's national rank and file summons are pretty heavy brawlers and can do quite well all the way up, and their B6 national is a flying AAABBBDHH with Blood Vengeance for 50 blood. I'm not saying that Ice Devils wouldn't be nice on top of that, but I didn't really miss them and wouldn't use many of them in preference to the Dakini. 9. I think you're overestimating the difficulty this causes - it has pros and cons, like everything. But since they can get past the Armor of Thorns/Brazen Vessel/Blood Thorn horizon without any real difficulty, it's not a stumbling block on their road to blood dominance. I want Mictlan to be the best at blood, and I'm certainly not super experienced in either nation. Initially, however, Lanka seems like it has too much blood power for the other things it has. -> Yeah, I played Lanka a bunch yesterday (studying up for a new MP game), and I¿ve got a much better handle on them now. 1) At least the way I play them, Mictlan will always have significantly more blood slaves for two reasons. First, as previously mentioned the blood hunters are 50% less expensive, this makes a big difference when you¿re focusing on blood and plan to be paying upkeep on lots of blood hunters and maximizing the amount of provinces you can use for blood hunting (as in don't have much income). Secondly all the other units are much less expensive. Obviously this is a trade off as you¿re getting pretty good units for your gold, but every game I¿m playing Lanka I¿m strapped for gold as I always want more brawlers, more of the very expensive (non-sacred, high upkeep) random path mages to increase my path coverage, more of the expensive demon kings to lead my demons, etc (you didn¿t want to reanimate corpses did you?). Not only are you balancing the spending of new gold, but also the upkeep cost for Lanka I find is much higher. This cuts not only into how many/how fast you deploy blood hunters, but also how many provinces you can devote to blood hunting. Again, this is more the way I play it than anything else, but I find Lanka is harder to really focus on blood hunting because of the opportunity cost. At the end of the day though, even if everything else was equal you¿ll have 50% more blood hunters with Mictlan. 2) I don¿t think Lanka can blood sacrifice, can they? If they can I must have totally missed that. 3) Lanka¿s national summons are indeed pretty good, probably about par with Mictlan¿s. I might give an edge to Mictlan on the low end summons as flying sacreds is a nice complement to their forces and solidly help against Jaguar warrior counters, while Lanka¿s low end summons don¿t really add a lot to their versatility (wohoo, more brawlers!). High end summons are probably comparable in power¿gotta love that blood vengeance! 4) I maintain my point about Mictlan having an advantage due to not having to rely on random pics for the simple reason of economics. Again, this may change with my play style, but I found I had no problem having the paths I needed with Lanka but the tradeoff was that I spent a decent amount of money on expensive, high upkeep mages. With Mictlan, you recruit exactly what you need, no waste, and everybody is sacred so your upkeep stays low. When you¿re really focusing on maximizing your blood economy it¿s vital that you pinch every penny you can. With Mictlan I regularly end up with probably 80-100% of the territories between 5k-10k set to blood hunting, with Lanka I can¿t come anywhere near that much blood hunting before the rest of my economy stalls from upkeep and a few necessary purchases per turn. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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